Porsche CFO Didn’t Lie to BNP About Options, Lawyer Says

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Ex-Porsche SE Chief Financial Officer
Holger Haerter’s lawyer attacked claims that a March 2009 e-mail
to BNP Paribas SA’s central credit committee may have influenced
the bank’s decision to back part of a 10 billion-euro ($12.9
billion) loan.

The bank had already decided to provide Porsche the 500
million-euro share of the loan before the e-mail was sent, Anne
Wehnert, Haerter’s attorney, told a Stuttgart court in closing
arguments today, seeking an acquittal. Prosecutors claim the
message downplayed the company’s liquidity needs by 1.4 billion
euros if it was to acquire a 20 percent stake in Volkswagen AG.

“This is an artificial allegation,” Wehnert said. “The
prosecution puts BNP in a victim position the bank isn’t even
claiming for itself.”

Haerter is on trial with one other Porsche manager on
charges they lied about Porsche’s financial condition during the
failed bid for Volkswagen through derivatives. Haerter has
separately been charged with market manipulation along with
former Chief Executive Officer Wendelin Wiedeking over the use
of options in the VW bid.

Prosecutors last week asked the court to give Haerter a
one-year suspended sentence and order him to pay 1 million
euros. They claim he said Porsche would need to spend 4.1
billion euros to gain control of Volkswagen where the correct
amount would have been 5.5 billion euros.

Credit Committee

The e-mail was sent on March 19, a few days after the
Paris-based BNP credit committee had internally decided to
participate in the syndicated loan. The deal was signed a few
days after the e-mail was received. A Frankfurt-based BNP
manager, who negotiated the agreement, had drafted the statement
seeking the additional information and asked Haerter to sign it.
The ex-CFO, together with two other managers, edited the text
and sent it back.

Prosecutors argue the internal decision date isn’t
relevant, the signature day is the time to look at. The e-mail
could well have changed the opinion within the bank and was thus
able to influence the decision to grant the loan.

Wehnert said such a reading overstretches the language of
the law and would punish Haerter for an action that hasn’t been
defined as illegal by the criminal code.

German Law

Under German law, loan fraud doesn’t require that a
creditor is actually deceived. The law punishes incorrect
statements that could influence the credit decision regardless
of the actual effect of the statement on the creditor.

Wehnert said the e-mail wasn’t about the sports-car maker’s
liquidity needs, as the BNP manager thought. It instead dealt
with the net purchase price, a term looking at the success of an
option strategy over a period of time, rather than the exercise
price of the call options Porsche held on VW shares.

“We have heard from witness that this is a dilettantish
reading of the term net purchase price,” Wehnert said. “My
client isn’t to blame” because “a BNP manager used a term he
didn’t understand.”

The lawyer also denied the charge that the men didn’t
disclose 45 million in extra put options against which Porsche
held no call options. The e-mail was intended to inform the bank
that the company didn’t hold derivative of other companies, not
about how many options it held on Volkswagen stock, she said.

The trial continues June 3 with closing arguments by the
defense of Christian N., the Porsche finance manager standing
trial alongside Haerter. A third defendant last year settled the
charges again him in the case.